


Paradise is Right Here

by tide_ms



Category: Oh My Girl (Band)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Falling In Love, Friendship, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Sort of Dystopian / Post-apocalypse AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 14:55:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14751017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tide_ms/pseuds/tide_ms
Summary: Because of love Yoobin wanted to stay, but because of love she had to leave.





	Paradise is Right Here

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tonyang (kurusui)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurusui/gifts).



> \- A gift for the Oh My Girl 2018 Mini Exchange.
> 
> \- Hope you like it. This was inspired by your first prompt: maknae line figuring out life, except it became Binnie figuring out life/love (or, 97line with Hyojung <3)

 

Jiho had only one thing to say about their manager taking off without a goodbye and leaving them a partially collapsed diner to take care of.

"We need a new boss," she said, "and another waiter because I'm tired of serving everyone alone."

But maybe it's two things, Yoobin wasn't following the rest of her complaints as she sat on the doorstep. Yoobin was staring at the screen in the middle of the door, announcing the two of them as the new owners of the place, and tried to figure out what the first thing owners of diners should do, but all thoughts fled and she's left with a shaky heart.

Yoobin forced it to calm down in less than a minute.

The key to the place was still lodged in the lock when Jiho and Yoobin had arrived, with only the announcement as the reason to why it was left there. (They didn't need any explanation to understand the situation. Their former boss, Junghee, talked nonstop about leaving for Paradise over the last month. Yoobin realized she didn't think she would actually do it. _Leaving_.)

There was no sign of someone taking that chance of Junghee's carelessness to raid the diner, though.

Yoobin looked at Jiho. "We can manage without a manager, and you make everyone serve themselves most of the time. We don't need another waiter."

Jiho mumbled something, but it sounded like a frustrated acknowledgement of Yoobin's reply than a countering comment.

She was staring at something behind Yoobin, chin rested on her palm - faint frown on her face.

Neither one of them rushed to open the diner and start their shift. Yoobin wasn't antsy to change out of the formal uniform she wore for school - despite the continuous drizzle that made sticky dirt a constant annoyance - and Jiho didn't seem any different.

It would be a slow week anyway, Yoobin thought as she sat next to Jiho. It always got slow whenever there was a chance for Paradise to be distracted enough to not notice those who sneaked in. This time, they were launching another spacecraft to taint the night sky.

Besides, they were the new owners of a partially collapsed diner in a partially deserted city that had the number Twenty-One for a name.

Yoobin decided they could use the moment to take it all in.

"Do you think she'll make it?"

There was a rail bridge a few blocks away that blocked the horizon for certain spots in the city. It was huge and high and behind it, far away behind it, the proud peaks of the space port's structure were peeking at them from between the buildings.

  
Paradise was even further behind the space port. Elusive and unseen, it was Yoobin's dream. _Everyone's dream_.

"I think she doesn't care anymore."

And it was true, Yoobin felt, and sad.

"What if we didn't make it either?" Yoobin asked after a moment of silence loomed over them gently. Bleak thoughts storming her mind with doubts and fears.

"You will, you already have fifty-eight point."

Yoobin turned to her, unamused. "Then what if _you_ didn't make it and stayed here for the rest of your life?"

In an instant, Jiho's boredom was masking her face.

Yoobin wondered if she was sad about Junghee like her.

"Well, I'll wait until I get desperate like Junghee unnie then come look for you to get me in secretly."

Yoobin rolled her eyes, Jiho would never do that. If only so she wouldn't have to live with owing her anything.

"You promised you will try getting the points, Jiho."

"It feels like begging, I don't want to collect them," Jiho replied, getting up and entering the quiet diner.

The lights turned on in sync with the opening of the door.

"It is not begging, it's a one way ticket, you said it yourself."

A ticket for the price of one hundred points, which would allow them to enter the city named Paradise and have a future. Or at least a better life, and maybe a chance to see the real stars.

Yoobin followed her into the diner, and for the first time ever, the air inside felt as though it had more freedom than suffocation.

Yoobin did not know why.

"No, I didn't." Jiho answered from the staff's room. The door was opened, but Yoobin knew she wouldn't be convincing Jiho about the points and Paradise today.

  
But it wasn't begging, it was proving that they could live up to Paradise's standards. That they had what it took to be... worthy.

Yoobin thought it sounded as bad, but she had to ignore the feeling. Paradise might not be the only city with a future to offer, but it was the closest to them.

  
*

  
They found a new manager before the end of their night. Her name was Hyojung and she had one of those beaming smiles that easily drew one to Yoobin's lips.

"I came right after seeing the announcement you guys put up. Did I miss it?"

  
_She couldn't have_ , Yoobin thought, a little surprised and a little charmed, but then there was a cozy blanket hovering in her mind as she gazed at Hyojung with a wide smile stuck to her lips and a burning blush centering in her cheeks.

Hyojung's cheeks and nose were red, and her breathlessness only confirmed that she really did her best to reach them before the position was taken.

How could Yoobin not hire her?

When Yoobin finally found her voice, it's a blurted out answer. "No! You're in, unnie!" An embarrassed laughter followed, obvious enough to Yoobin that she was thankful Jiho did not just witness that.

*

"Employers do job interviews first, Yoobin!" Jiho told her after Hyojung went to the office to settle in, and the first thing that came to Yoobin's mind upon seeing the anger on Jiho's face was that she shouldn't have hired Hyojung without consulting with her first.

Yoobin didn't mean to do that, she swore, but Jiho had been busy with customers, and Yoobin simply could not find it in her to turn Hyojung down.

"Jiho, do you really think anyone wants to work in this place? We're lucky we had someone apply this quick."

The diner was dull, for starter, with colors that gave the sense of nothingness. It was located near the rail bridge that made everything shake with a loud noise whenever the train passed. And the only thing that made it safe after half of its ceiling collapsed was the Invisible Shield unit Jiho and Yoobin had secretly installed.

Jiho didn't budge even with all of that. She folded her arms, her pointed look scaring Yoobin a little. _Just a little_.

"You'll like Hyojung unnie, I promise." Yoobin said in a low voice so neither the remaining customers nor Hyojung could hear them, a pout making its way to her lips despite herself.

"I didn't say I didn't like her."

Yoobin's shoulders slacked, annoyance flaring up. "Then why are you bugging me about this? Jiho-"

"Because we have to do this right, Yoobin. How are you going to get the rest of the points if we aren't running the diner properly? You know they monitor everything," Jiho answered and didn't wait for a reply.

Yoobin watched her leave, sensing that something was missing from the trail of Jiho's reminder. Something bad and heavy and annoying that lurked in her mind to stress her about every point she got and did not get.

*

"I'm sorry," Yoobin told Jiho the next morning as they headed for school. The streets and buildings were shaded by the grey sky, but it was one of those days where the vivid colors of their city did not escape her focus. A speeding vehicle, a (working) neon sign above a store, kids running after a fleeing ball in the Safe Playing Zone, fake grass and artificial flowers and trees; it felt like a nice day.

"I didn't mean to hire Hyojung unnie without discussing with you first."

Jiho shook her head. "I told you, it just wasn't good for earning points."

Yoobin realized it then.

The change wasn't just that Junghee left and gave them the diner, it was her feelings about the diner as well.

It was a small thing, perhaps even trivial because she was leaving for Paradise. Eventually.

But for now, for this moment she's living, she could change something about her life. Or at least a part of it, and she wanted to run the diner properly.

"I don't care about the points." The words slipped past Yoobin's lips, but they felt so true; so sudden that Yoobin was surprised.

Ahead of her, Jiho turned to her with a frown on her face. "What do you mean you don't care about the points? Of course you do."

"No. We're both owners of the diner now, Jiho, we should be making decisions about it together. It's- it's our responsibility."

It shouldn't matter this much, really. If she wanted a future, if she wanted to see the wonders the world had and could have, she would have to leave. Jiho, too. (If only she would stop being stubborn and apply for Paradise.) But despite all that Yoobin knew her whole life, it mattered that she had something belonging to her now. Right now, and she could make it better.

  
After a moment of searching her eyes, Jiho spoke. "Okay, you're right."

  
Almost instantly, a peep sounded from the device coiled around Yoobin's left wrist.

  
One point had been added to her fifty-eight one. The immediacy of scoring points whenever she did something that Paradise might like always left Yoobin overwhelmed with awe and admiration for the high tech, but now she felt none of that, _not even the worry that Paradise was actually watching every single move and word she uttered, and not reading her interactions with life, with people, like they said they do._

Jiho grasped her hand and stared at it. "Hey, you're almost there." Then squinted at her. "And here I believed you'd wait for me."

Yoobin rolled her eyes and groaned, walking past Jiho.

But the morning was still nice, and Jiho's giggles weren't that annoying. Yoobin didn't let out a sigh of relief upon getting one more point, and felt no dread about getting the rest before time slipped her grasp or leaving without Jiho.

  
*

One night, the three found themselves a few minutes to just sit down and relax. The slowness following Junghee's (and others') departure had resolved with the return of many.

Yoobin didn't know what to think of that, some of them weren't that old. She knew, just like them and everyone else, that the trip to Paradise through the vast distance wasn't a joyful one. But even with that, they had to try, and Yoobin thought she understood.

That's until Hyojung told them that she never wanted to go to Paradise and that she had dreams for their own city.

Yoobin and Jiho gaped at her at first, their smiles fading in slow motion like some controlled scene. It was embarrassingly obvious, but then there was worry twisting in Yoobin's stomach.

Hyojung smiled in understanding. "I know what you're thinking. It's crazy, right?"

 _But she didn't know,_ Yoobin thought, because she was leaving for Paradise and Hyojung wasn't. It was strange, but it weighed heavily in Yoobin's heart all the same.

"But you are so young, unnie, why would you waste your chance to live somewhere better than here?" Yoobin heard herself ask, and heard something coating her voice that she couldn't recognize then.

"It is not so bad here," Hyojung replied softly, but the passion shimmering in her eyes as she spoke about their city was even softer. Especially in the way it caught Yoobin's heart with warmth. "And it could become better if we tried re-building it. Paradise didn't survive the Great Fall, you know, it was re-built. Maybe we can do the same here."

Yoobin felt giddy. She had never heard that before, not even from Jiho who had yet to decide whether she want to stay or leave.

Twenty-One becoming actually livable? Perhaps even having a future for its children?

Suddenly, Yoobin had a vision. Twenty-One as advanced and fancy as Paradise. And her still living in it. With Hyojung.

"Re-build it?" Jiho asked with a quiet voice, eyes fixed on the half-empty tea cup.

"Yes!" Hyojung answered, her excitement unmistakable - her smile more beautiful than a cloudy sky of Summer.

Jiho's shock sounded more clearly when she finally lifted her gaze. "But how, unnie? We barely function with the way things are right now. We almost fully relying on Paradise's and the other cities' charities."

Yoobin's heart beat hard, but Jiho's words came full of familiar anger and passed down ache.

Yoobin's hand twitched, she wanted to soothe her friend, but Jiho might not want that right now.

"It'll be hard, but not impossible. I-I think we have a chance, just like Paradise and the other places had theirs and took it." Hyojung said, but then suddenly her eyes widened, shaky orbs gazing at them both before settling on Yoobin. "I'm not saying heading for Paradise is bad, you know that, right?"

Yoobin rushed to assure her before she could think better of it, hand involuntarily holding Hyojung's. "I know, unnie. Jiho actually keeps bugging me for trying to leave, and supporting me at the same time." She glanced at Jiho. "Still very confusing, by the way."

Hyojung squeezed her hand in return, smiling with relief, and Yoobin almost missed the fact that Jiho didn't joke about that being her goal.

Yoobin felt her mind approaching panic mode because she didn't know if she should pull her hand back or not. Worry and embarrassment scorched within her as she realized her palm would sweat any minute.

Hyojung continued. "I don't hate any of those cities, they worked hard to stand again. I just wish our elders did the same for this place instead of letting things reach this point." She furrowed her brows. "Besides, the chance Paradise give us is conditioned by their changing standards, at best. Which is their right, I get it, but..."

She seemed lost of words, and ended up not finding them. "Well, I just think Twenty-One can stand, too. Maybe even have an actual name instead of a number."

That idea created a cozy sensation to swell in Yoobin's heart. A name meant belonging. A name meant existing as real as Paradise.

"I like that." Jiho spoke then, absent-minded, but then her eyes met Hyojung's brightening ones and a smile made its way to her lips.

Yoobin smiled because of that.

With something akin to longing, Hyojung told them about her plans for their city.

Yoobin could only listen in awe. But later, she would stay up thinking about the paradise Hyojung wanted to build. A smile would remain plastered on her lips as sleep weighed on her eyelids, and a sense of ease - light and refreshing - mixed with excitement to wake up and see Hyojung again would defeat her fears of living a life in a nameless, hopeless place.

  
*

  
(Fixing the diner had been the first thing Hyojung had done as their new manager.

With a crease on he forehead, she had supervised the repairs until Jiho blocked her view - a plate in one hand and a drink in the other - and told her she wasn't going to do anything with her fixed gaze. "Believe me, I tried."

Hyojung had sighed and complied.

"I just still can't believe it stayed like this for two years. It looked really dangerous, wasn't your old manager aware of that?"

"She was, everyone was, but no one stopped coming, so Junghee unnie forgot all about fixing it. Did you know that it was me and Yoobin who installed the shield unit?"

Yoobin hadn't been able to block their conversation from her focus as she prepared for the day's shift. A stray thought told her that listening to Hyojung's sweet voice was way better than hearing Jiho bickering with Junghee or the customers. Her voice was soothing, and her laughter that Jiho kept enticing easily filled the place with a lighter vibe than the one they had all these years.

Yoobin had stared at the carrots shrinking into small pieces, and without her notice, without a noise or an announcement, something clicked into place. Something nice. Something full of tranquility and all the things that flow in rhythm with it.

Yoobin had smiled, and even that had escaped her awareness.)

  
Changes did not stop at that, much to Yoobin's delight. The food menu was completely under her control as the diner's cook. The joy that swelled in her heart after Hyojung listened to her thoughts and agreed on them, it must have been the hugest she had had in a long while because it was enough to distract her from worrying about Paradise. Instead, Yoobin spent a few hours each day after that wondering if Hyojung liked her cooking or singing - _Jiho made her sing_ \- and wondered if Hyojung found her pretty and searched for her smile like she did sometimes. And wondered, what sort of life they could have together as they re-built Twenty-One.

(Yoobin didn't realize that she used to daydream about heading to Paradise with Jiho not long ago.)

Speaking of Jiho, she seemed as though she no longer looked at life with a hint of indifference and a bit of resent and anger. Yoobin wasn't one hundred percent sure, but Jiho hadn't looked at the application form with a conflicted heart not even once after meeting Hyojung. After falling into Hyojung's gentle presence.

This, Yoobin was sure of. There was a fall, a much needed fall.

And it was endless and happening so fast, in the span of two weeks and a few days. And all because someone left all of a sudden.

But thinking about that brought Yoobin to a pause one morning as she prepared for school.

She could still be trying to get the points, she's more than half way through, but she could stay. She could stay with Hyojung and help her build their city, and she... wanted that.

With a strange sensation blooming with each heartbeat, Yoobin wanted to stay in this bleak city.

She couldn't call it love, however, the mere thought made her blush and quickly count from one hundred to one, so she called it hope. Hyojung gave her hope to stay.

  
*

Yoobin wasn't usually impulsive. Well, actually, she was never impulsive. She always studied her moves and calculated her steps, that's why she decided to simply enjoy spending time with Hyojung for now because she liked the older girl and loved listening to her voice and laughter, and later figure out if her heart still beat differently whenever she thought about staying.

She had almost sixty point, she couldn't just ignore them, right?

But there was something that had never crossed her mind.

If Hyojung managed to spark something in her heart, to make it beat in an overwhelming yet very nice way, who to say she hadn't done the same for someone else? Like Jiho?

"I think I like Hyojung unnie." Jiho told her as they head for the diner.

At first, Yoobin laughed in triumph. She couldn't help but to feel smug about it, and inexplicably happy because Hyojung was the coolest person Yoobin had ever met. "I told you you will! She's amazing, isn't she?"

The sigh of relief escaped without Yoobin's notice. "She has so many great ideas for this place, she loves this city! Who loves this city? I didn't think anyone could, but she does, and I actually see why." The words didn't feel enough for Yoobin to express just how much Hyojung was great. "I've never met someone like her before, Jiho. She's really determined to fix this city, and I think she would achieve that--" But then she noticed Jiho's loaded silence. She noticed the faint red in her cheeks, the familiar furrow of her brows. And it's at times like this that Yoobin really felt how well she knew her friend.

It dawned on her all at once.

"Wait. You mean like... love?" Yoobin asked, and the pang that squeezed her heart was new. Unexpected and bearing realizations with it.

Jiho simply nodded, keeping her head hung low.

Their steady footsteps - hers now almost automatic, relying fully on muscle memory of walking down the same path toward the diner a billion times before - were drowned out by the noise of a lazy Friday.

Her thoughts turned into static, all but one.

Jiho and Hyojung. Jiho and Hyojung - her best friend Jiho and the girl who created butterflies in her stomach with a simple smile and a sweet dream.

"Oh, I- wow," Yoobin stuttered, but quickly laughed to hide her shock, and it almost sounded so natural. "I never thought I'd witness this day, Jiho!" She exclaimed. "Finally someone stole your heart, huh?"

Jiho didn't share her excitement, and Yoobin's heart sank in a rough fall because what if Jiho noticed what Yoobin had _just_ realized.

"What's wrong?"

Both of them stop walking almost at once.

 _She's worried_ , Yoobin recognized as hurt swelled in her heart and poked her eyes with the threat of tears.

Jiho locked eyes with her. "I know you were holding back from getting the points because I promised you I'll give Paradise a shot. I know you're trying to wait for me so we can leave together, but..."

She was, but Yoobin had forgotten all about that because she had been busy falling in Hyojung's dreams and the warmth of her words.

"You're staying." Yoobin finished for her, mind reeling and heart beating in hurt. And it shouldn't even be surprising because who would leave their love for a paradise full of wonders and opportunities?

Jiho wouldn't, of course, she wouldn't, Yoobin knew this as much as she knew she had been willing to do the same if reason didn't get the best of her.

She also couldn't escape the fact that she was late in everything.

In leaving for Paradise, in finding that paradises rose from ashes, in realizing love.

  
Tears welled in Yoobin's eyes despite herself, but she had a reason to give Jiho.

"I never thought I'd leave alone." And it's as true as never thinking she wanted to stay.

Yoobin lowered her head, allowing her bangs to cover the hurt and hopelessness from being noticed.

"I'm sorry." Jiho whispered, and even if she didn't want to hear it then, sorry was genuine in her friend's voice. "I'm really sorry I held you back."

Almost on instinct, Yoobin shook her head, not wanting Jiho to think she was at fault. "I wanted to wait for you." But saying that wasn't enough, so she forced herself to look up and smile. "It was my choice, I'd do it again." She would, she would. But why did it feel strange, _fake_ , when she truly mean it?

Tears that Jiho wouldn't let fall shimmered in her eyes upon hearing that.

"You should stay. Hyojung unnie will make this place better than Paradise and all the other places."

"I know, but I can't." Yoobin said, her words choked because she desperately wanted to stay, but in a blur, she saw the ache she would bring to her heart if she stayed. "Teacher Jane sent a recommendation for me to Paradise."

Teacher Jane hadn't, yet. She had asked Yoobin about doing that a few weeks ago, but Yoobin had asked for time to think about it, to convince Jiho to give the system of applying for Paradise a chance. (If a recommendation was sent for those who were serious and diligent, leaving for Paradise might a heartbeat away.)

Jiho's shock hurt even more because all that Yoobin could think of was Hyojung and all the happiness she wanted to give her when she should be happy for Jiho for finding love in a sad place like Twenty-One. And she was, she was happy, but it was complicated. As complicated as staying or taking a risky trip through the vast distance between Twenty-One and all the wishes and dreams

"I-I might be leaving soon."

In the end, what made Yoobin break into sobs was the hug Jiho pulled her into. Tight, warm, loving.

Jiho always cared about her, Yoobin knew this. And she had always felt the same, but why couldn't she feel just happy for her friend?

Yoobin felt like she knew the answer, and it wasn't one she liked very much.

Yoobin allowed herself to cry then - head resting on Jiho's shoulder, and a handful of Jiho's jacket in her fist.

  
_It felt like an early goodbye, it was goodbye._


End file.
